Tel Aviv. It seems as if Israel has started ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ against its arch enemies. Top Hamas commanders have been killed one after the other. Hamas’ political commander Ismail Haniyya was killed in Iran on Wednesday. Within 24 hours, Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was found under the rubble in the city of Dahi near Beirut in Lebanon in an Israeli missile attack. Israel claimed on Friday that it has killed Hamas’ military chief Mohammad Deif in an attack in Khan Younis last month. Now comes the turn of Hamas’ international face Yahya Sinwar. Israel calls it ‘Dead Man Walking’.
Yahya Sinwar is considered the top commander of Hamas. Sinwar is considered the founder of Hamas. He laid the foundation of Hamas during the Palestinian uprising against Israel in the late 1980s. He has been in Israeli custody for 20 years. He was released from Israel in 2011 under the prisoner exchange program. Israel considers Sinwar more radical than Ismail Haniyya. Israel says that after the death of Baqi Haniyya, Sinwar has got a free hand in operating Hamas. He can operate Hamas according to his own wishes.
Gaza’s leader in 2017
Sinwar’s hold on Hamas gradually strengthened and he emerged as its strong face in Palestine. In 2017, he was elected its leader in Gaza. Israel believes that he was among those Hamas leaders who plotted the October 7 attack. Israel believes that Sinwar was also hiding with Hamas’ military wing commander Mohammad Deif and deputy commander Marwan Issa who were killed.
Different opinions of being hidden
The Israeli army believes that Sinwar is hidden in Rafah, but Israeli officials say that Sinwar is still hidden in Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza. On Friday, Israeli intelligence officials claimed that Sinwar is hidden in a tunnel 7.5 kilometers away from Rafah.
Will give free hand to Hamas
A professor of Palestine studies in Tel Aviv says that I don’t think Sinwar would have celebrated Haniya’s death, but it has made it easier for him to work in Hamas. He considered Haniya an obstacle in his path. After Haniya’s death, the rift between Gaza and Doha has increased significantly; which clearly shows that a peace agreement between Hamas and Israel is unlikely to happen.
Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel
FIRST PUBLISHED : August 2, 2024, 08:03 IST